Memoirs
by KuroGalaxy14
Summary: It's Father's Day, and Arashi and Isamu Hikou are reminiscing about their father. One-shot, brother-centric


**Have a feelsy oneshot for Father's Day! Man it's been so long since I actually wrote with the Hikous outside of RP. Anyway, enjoy!**

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"Let it rip!"

The immortal cry echoed through the forest as birds flew away, a tree shuddering and falling.

"Nice shot, big brother! But… Isn't your bey a stamina type? Shouldn't you be training to make it spin for a very long time?" A second voice rang out.

"Perhaps, but you know what our father always said. Train to strengthen that which is your weakness, so that if the time comes, you can use it as a strength."

"Well, yeah, but still, Chimera IS a stamina type bey, and you're treating it like it's an attack type."

"You act as if Cerberus is an attack type. I've seen you knocking over those rock piles."

"... I knocked them over so that I could practice defensive maneuvers!"

"Sure you did. Regardless, we should both train for attacking, because the best defense is also a good offense."

"Aren't you saying that backwards?"

"Not really. Just in a different order than usual."

"So backwards from the way Dad always said it."

A pause and heavy sigh came before a black, red, and silver bey returned to the black-gloved hand of its owner. Arashi Hikou turned and looked at his brother, a calm yet stern look on his face.

"And your point is?" He asked after several seconds of silence.

Isamu shrugged, jumping off the rock he had been sitting on. "I just thought you'd forgotten the way Dad always said it."

"Well, I haven't." Arashi grunted, turning back around and raising his launcher once more, beginning to hook Chimera onto it. However, he was stopped by a hand on his arm. Arashi glanced down, his one visible eyebrow raised at his brother.

"Can we talk more about Dad, please? You avoid the subject so much and… I just wanna talk about him. It is Father's Day, after all."

Arashi looked away, slowly lowering his launcher and bey. "Don't remind me…" He whispered.

"I… I think it would be a good idea to remember him, instead of acting like he never existed." Isamu said hesitantly. "Can we? Please? For old times' sake?"

A heavy sigh came from the older bluenette before he nodded, walking over to a nearby log that he had knocked down earlier and sitting down. Isamu sat next to his brother, leaning against him slightly.

"Remember that one time when we were really little, and we pinned Miyako's skirt to a tree," Isamu hesitated as he spotted the scowl that crossed his brother's face at the mention of their sister, "And we thought that Dad would be mad at us, but before he punished us for being mean to our sister, he scolded you for throwing the kunai improperly?"

"Yeah… I remember…" Arashi said softly, his one good eye focused on the ground between his black boots.

"Or.." Isamu paused, searching for another memory that did not involve their traitorous sister. "The one time, when we were playing outside in the yard with our old training beys, and we heard Mom screaming bloody murder, and we ran inside only to spot Dad carrying her on his shoulders around the kitchen, while she yelled at him?"

"Mmhmm." Arashi said, putting an arm around his brother's shoulders. Isamu took this as permission to continue, and promptly did so.

"Or even that time when you tried to cook a surprise breakfast for Mom on her birthday, and you got me to help you, and then Dad walked in just as we accidentally lit the toaster on fire? And then, when he tried to put it out, he lit the rest of the kitchen on fire and Mom walked in just as he was helping us escape out the window and she smacked him with a frying pan before putting out the fire in two minutes by herself?"

A faint smile of amusement came across Arashi's face at this, one that did not miss Isamu's eager eyes.

"For the record…" Arashi said slowly, "It was two frying pans, one on either side of his head, and he was unconscious while she put out the fire."

"Oh yeah." Isamu said, forcing himself to laugh despite the sorrow in his heart. He knew that talking about their father was hard, but he figured that that was exactly the reason they needed to, to forget for a while that their father, as well as everyone else in their family save for each other and Miyako, was dead.

"Remember all the times he had to correct my fighting stance because I kept leaning too far forwards and would fall over the moment I tried to punch?" Isamu said.

"You still do that." Arashi said pointedly, glancing over at his brother.

Isamu crossed his arms and pouted. "I do not!"

"Then prove it." Arashi challenged, looking Isamu directly in the eye.

Isamu gulped, but inwardly smiled at the gleam of challenge in his brother's eye, noting that it was a nice change from the dull green that had become Arashi's normal look over the past two years. Eager to keep any sort of happier emotion in his brother's eye, Isamu leapt to his feet and turned around, taking a couple of steps back before planting his feet wide apart in a fighting stance.

Arashi crossed his arms. "You are still standing too far forwards. Put more weight on your back foot, remember?"

 _"Put more weight on your back foot, remember? If you lean too far forwards, then you can be easily knocked over, because you will be off-balance. Stand like this."_

Isamu, remembering the sound of his father's voice, closed his eyes and imagined what it had felt like to have those strong hands on his shoulders, gently but firmly pulling him backwards into the correct stance. He began to shift backwards slightly, frowning in concentration. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he actually felt hands on his shoulders, a firm but gentle touch guiding him backwards until his weight was more evenly distributed.

"You still don't have the correct stance down, after all these years." Arashi scolded, his voice close to his brother's ear.

Isamu opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his brother, smiling sheepishly. "Well then it's a good thing that you know it."

"Mmhmm. I never learned it wrong in the first place." Arashi said, removing his hands from Isamu's shoulders.

"That's because Dad always focused on you more than on me." Isamu said, sticking his tongue out.

Arashi rolled his eyes. "You always got distracted, that's why."

Isamu paused. "Remember that one time Dad was correcting my stance, and then Mom yelled something at him, and he overcorrected and made me fall on my butt?"

"How could I forget you loudly complaining for weeks afterwards that your tailbone was still sore?" Arashi snorted, rolling his eyes. "You were such a wimp."

"Says the one who screamed like a girl once when Dad snuck up on you when you were trying to sneak out!" Isamu shot back, sticking his tongue out. "He laughed so hard he nearly forgot to ground you for it!"

Arashi sent an emerald glare in his brother's direction.

"... Speaking of screaming like a girl… Remember the time we were messing around in the backyard catching lizards, and then when we went inside to show Dad…" Isamu trailed off, testing to see whether his brother would supply the rest of the story.

Arashi rolled his eyes. "Dad screamed, Mom came into the room in a panic and then screamed when she saw all of the lizards running around the floor. We were grounded for an entire month and spent the rest of the week finding them and putting them back outside because Dad would jump onto the nearest object every time one ran past him."

Isamu giggled. "Yep. And you never stopped teasing him about it. Got in trouble every time too."

Arashi huffed. "Even despite that, he was braver than any of us."

"Well he was supposed to be, right? He was our dad, after all." Isamu said. "That's what dads do. They protect their kids even if that means to the death-" Isamu cut himself short, instantly catching the sudden change in Arashi's face at the word 'death.'

"A-Arashi?" The younger said nervously, biting his lip and watching as his brother went from peaceful reminiscing to a sort of pained, angry sorrow within seconds.

Arashi clenched and bared his teeth, both hands dropping to his sides and clenching into fists as his whole body shook, hot tears threatening to spill from his visible eye, and, if the droplets coming from underneath his bangs were any indicator, already releasing tears from the hidden eye.

Isamu hesitantly took a step towards his brother, only to tense and jump slightly as Arashi whirled and slammed one fist into the nearest rock pile. The younger looked down sadly, sniffling slightly.

"I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean to…" He said softly, staring at the ground and his own black boots.

"He died and I nearly failed his last order…" Arashi whispered, his fist still pressed against the rock. "I was too weak to completely carry it out."

"But you weren't!" Isamu said, looking back up and trying to prompt his brother to continue, remembering from somewhere that it was good to talk about what one was feeling, something Arashi rarely did. "You did get us out, just like he told us to."

"We both nearly died." Arashi growled. "That was too close to failure to count as a victory. The only reason we even survived was because someone from a nearby village heard about the attack and helped us escape, tended to both of our wounds."

"You kept me from getting seriously hurt." Isamu pointed out. "All I got was a nasty gash on my leg."

"Complete success would have meant that you were not harmed, that neither of us was harmed. I was told to take you and escape, but we were caught." Arashi said, still trembling.

Isamu took a deep breath, gathering courage. He stepped over to his brother and pulled his hand away from the rock, gently cradling the already-swelling limb in both his hands and staring at it.

"We did escape, big brother."

"But at what cost? He should have done it himself… He could have gotten you out unharmed. Now…" Arashi's voice cracked, and for a moment Isamu thought that the older was about to slam his other fist into the rock.

"I'll never be like him... We're still kids, Isamu… We're not supposed to be wandering around a forest with no home, not even a father to return to. We don't have anyone to celebrate today…"

Isamu took in a breath. "You're already like Dad was."

"Dad wasn't half-blinded by failure." Arashi whispered, barely able to speak anymore as the tears flowed freely. "This," he reached up underneath his bangs and laid one hand over his hidden eye, "Is proof that I'm not as strong as he was, and I never will be."

"But you are!"

"Dad was willing to die to keep us safe, Isamu. I… I can't say that I am…"

"But you're brave and you fought to keep me safe even though you knew you might die."

"I was afraid." Arashi whispered in a barely audible tone. "I still am."

Isamu cocked his head to the side. "Afraid of what?"

Arashi suddenly reached forwards and pulled his brother into a tight hug, ignoring the throbbing in his hand. "I will not lose you…" He whispered.

Isamu reached up and hugged his brother back. "You won't lose me. You're strong. Even if they come after us, you can defeat them."

Arashi fell silent, standing nearly motionless except for the occasional quiet gasping for breath as his emotional defenses broke down.

Isamu, on the other hand, closed his eyes, feeling guilty and letting his own tears fall. All he had wanted to do was to make Father's Day a happy memory again. By remembering happy memories of their father, rather than the tragedy that had been so long ago but still felt as painful as if it had been yesterday. Yet all he had succeeded in doing was making his normally stoic brother cry, and harder than Isamu had ever seen.

Isamu frowned in thought, trying to figure out some way he could cheer his brother up, repair the damage that had been done.

"You know…" He began slowly, nervous that Arashi would snap at him, "I don't think that this is a sign of failure."

Arashi remained silent at this. Isamu pulled away just slightly, reaching up cautiously and moving the bangs away from the left half of his brother's face. No matter how many times he saw it, Isamu was always slightly unnerved by the side of Arashi's face that had been hidden behind his hair since the attack. As usual, he was being greeted not by the emerald that he always saw in the eye that Arashi kept visible, but by a cold, dull, foggy silver iris, currently surrounded by the reddened sclera due to the amount of crying Arashi had already done.

Isamu took in a breath and placed his thumb on Arashi's forehead, just over his eyebrow, where a rather clean scar began. The younger gently ran his thumb all the way down, over his brother's eyebrow, down his eyelid, which automatically closed as Isamu's thumb passed over, and all the way to Arashi's jawbone, where the scar finally came to an end.

"I think…" Isamu continued, "That this scar is a proof that you can fight, that you are so strong that losing half your sight can't keep you down. It is a battle scar, after all. The most honorable kind someone can get. It's proof that those guys had to go through you to even put a scratch on me, and you didn't let them do any more than that, even though you could only see out one eye and were bleeding badly."

Arashi wordlessly reached up and pushed Isamu's hand away from his face, letting his bangs fall back into place to cover up the scar.

"Dad would be so proud of you for that, if he saw you, knew what you did." Isamu said. "I know he would. If he were here, he would see that you had kept me alive, and not only kept me safe from those attackers, but ever since then. So… I think that your blind eye is proof that you are already as strong as Dad was…"

Arashi looked at his brother wordlessly, his face back to the normal expressionless, almost dead look that it had held since the attack two years ago that had cost him half his eyesight and much more.

Isamu looked away sadly, wishing he could help his brother.

"Are you sure?"

Isamu blinked and looked back at his brother, surprised at hearing him speak in his usual calm tone.

"Well, yeah… That's how I've always thought of it." The younger said softly, almost in a sheepish manner.

Despite himself, Arashi allowed a faint smile to cross his lips. "Isamu…"

"Yeah…?"

Arashi leaned forwards and planted a gentle kiss on top of his brother's head before pulling him back into a warm, close hug. "Thank you…" He whispered. "Even if Dad wouldn't be proud of me… He would be proud of you right now. I think we both know that."

"Don't doubt that he'd be proud of you for how you fought that day." Isamu said. "I saw you. You used every last move that he ever taught you, and you saved me."

"So I did…"

"I have an idea." Isamu said, looking up at his brother.

Arashi raised an eyebrow quizzically. "And that is?"

"Let's always fight our hardest, whether we're in hand-to-hand combat or Beyblade, to show that we are strong because our dad taught us to be. It's the least we can do to honor him."

Arashi let out another rare smile at this. "Yeah… That sounds like a good idea."

Isamu pulled himself out of the hug, taking a couple of leaps backwards to put some distance between him and his brother. "And let's start right now! I challenge you and Chimera to a battle!" He exclaimed, raising his launcher.

Arashi put one hand on his hip. "Isamu…"

"... Yes?"

"I just hurt my hand and can't launch until it heals." Arashi said calmly.

"... How could I forget! Come on, we're taking care of that right now!" Isamu exclaimed, snatching Arashi's hand right off his hip and darting back for their camp nearby.

"Hey!" Arashi yelped in surprise, nearly falling flat on his face. "Slow down!"

Isamu paused, a quizzical smile on his face as his emerald eyes gleamed with mischief. "Remember that time when you and I tied Dad's leg to a tree, made him mad, and got him to chase us, and he fell flat on his face?"

Arashi rolled his eyes. "Yes. I remember."

Isamu grinned. "Good."

And with that, the two brothers returned to their camp, a new determination in both hearts to forever honor the memory of their father, who had taught them everything they knew, and to use their skills to be just like him.

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 **You are welcome for the feels. Happy father's day!**


End file.
